Paul Léautaud

Paul Léautaud is a writer French, born with Paris, France the January 18th 1872, lived with Fontenay-Aux-Roses (Hauts-de-Seine), but it died out with the private clinic of the Valley to the Wolves with Châtenay-Malabry (Hauts-de-Seine) the February 22nd 1956 at the 84 years age, and its last words before dying would be " Now, foutez to me the paix".

Biography

It is born from a father actor then twenty-three blower years with the Comédie-Française. Five days after the childbirth, it is given up by his mother, one of the “temporary partners” of the parent. Raised by an indifferent father, the small Paul very early acquires the direction of independence and has a key of the residence at the five years age.

In its adolescence, it binds friendship with Adolphe Van Bever and shares with him a poor life of employee. Their common passion of poetry will lead them to publish in 1900 the anthology Poètes of today .

At twenty years, he discovers Henry Beyle alias Stendhal. This literary meeting will remain like a crucial step in its constitution of writer. It begins this same year its Literary journal that it will hold sixty-three years, essential testimony on the man who it was and monumental and highly subjective panorama on first half of the twentieth century and the literary microcosm of then, mainly seen of its office of employee under paid with the Mercure de France.

Misanthropist with the bloated face voltairienne, of an incisor effectiveness in his writing, it makes the choice of a cut off existence, although always in liaison with essential people of literary microcosm: he causes the admiration of Octave Mirbeau and Lucien Descaves, which would have readily supported it for the Goncourt price, and he counts among his friends Marcel Schwob, Remy de Gourmont, Alfred Vallette, Guillaume Apollinaire, Paul Valéry and André Gide.

Under the pseudonym of Maurice Boissard, Léautaud becomes in 1907 critical dramatic with the Mercure de France, then with the Nouvelle French Review and with the Nouvelles arts persons . “Slicing on the ordinary one” (expression of its vintage) it confirms its attitude vis-a-vis the world and the axes first of its nature and its thought. The author of the Boyfriend reconciles an exaggerated cutting off in his residence of Fontenay-Aux-Roses (as from 1911) surrounded by tens of dogs and cats, and a frequentation of the cultural world, always impressed of a cynical distance.

To assume its vital minimum, he works thirty-three years as general secretary of the Mercure de France. Popularity will come only on late, in 1950, thanks to the radiophonic interviews of Robert Mallet. At eighty years its liveliness and its indignations, carried by a voice with the singular stamps, are more powerful than ever. It dies out in its sleep with the Valley-with-Wolves, convalescent home located on the old field of Chateaubriand where it had placed for one month.

Léautaud is an aristocrat by the spirit, in its certainty of itself, by an overall practice of an often caustic clearness, by a fidelity without fault with its manner of being and of thinking. Alfred Vallette, director of Mercury, one of the men to have cotoyé it more, declares to him in 1924, “At the bottom you are an aristocrat. All your actions, your ways of acting, prove it. ” Its bias of subjectivity in any thing is reconciled without sorrow with a recognized effectiveness of the feather and verb. It is a paragon of the aristocratism as a recluse, without search of the capacity, attentive misanthropist of its contemporaries, writer by pleasure. Its political positions (to consult its Newspaper of post-war period) were reactionaries: regret of the order which reigned under the occupation, detestation of the workmen, considered to be lazy as a whole, of the trade unions and the parties, of left especially.

Its design of the literary style in some quotations

" To supervise themselves, be conscious, always.

To defy style of Renan, all the styles known as great styles. Not to make easy, insipid sentences. Contrary to the hard, dry, even hard sentences. A harmony will also emerge from these sentences. To simplify unceasingly. The least possible of epithets. A tender sentence and singing by-Ci by-there, like a veiled smile, atténuera." (Literary journal (JL) vol. I, September 4th, 1898).

" The sentence must be whole, of only one line, I want to say not crossed by point and comma, punctuation which does not correspond to nothing: as much to begin another sentence.

To apply to the long sentences, which allow only the harmonie." (JL vol. I, July 2nd, 1899).

" Me will not be included/understood when I reproach certain styles for not having anything of trembling…

And then, the unbearable trouble which the perfection releases… While… The negligence, a certain negligence is a great principle, reason, of art." (JL vol. I, March 18th, 1901).

" If I have a thing to say, the periphrasis aggravates me, appears ridiculous to me, I prefer the clear expression. I have to write for example that a woman shook. One will express that by: she cherished herself closely… or: she walked a certain time one of her fingers… it is puerile and that wants nothing to say. The verb to masturbate? It is almost to want to make effect, and it is what it is especially necessary to avoid, the effect, when one writes things sharp and really arrived, and that one wants to especially only tell. Therefore, to put: she shook it is what appears the mieux." to me; (JL vol. I, February 11th, 1906).
" The true literary talent, it is to write books like one writes letters, absolutely. All that is not that is only pathos, poses, rhetoric, puffiness. To let itself even go, not seek its sentences, make fun of the negligences of style, the tone of sincerity and naturalness there gagnera." (JL vol. I, January 22nd, 1906).
" I have thought, for a few days, that Rousseau and after him did much evil to the literature. It is them which us all our speechifiers come. They removed the naturalness in the style as in the feelings. They created an installation, an attitude as well of form, expression, as of spirit. It is perhaps true that they created certain feelings, certain states of heart, as say the smoothies. (...) Their influence acts on us through other writers. That does not prevent realizing and from regretting what they made us lose of naturalness, simplicity, of ease, of good-naturedness.

I want to say exactly: the tragedy, the tragedy of Crow and Root, especially, damaged our theater by introducing the declamation there. Eh! well Rousseau and Chateaubriand damaged our literature by introducing the declamation there. A writer who déclame, nothing is more méprisable." (JL vol. III, August 11th, 1913).

" This manner of judgment on the books which are badly written is definitely common to many letters people. (...) As soon as one does not make given rhythm sentences, with epithets chosen, well humming, one writes badly. The spontaneous style, primesautier, given up, are for them without savor. They need the lards." (JL vol. X., February 23rd, 1934).
" There is not to say, when something is written, to as soon as publish it completed, it creates for itself in oneself, in spite of oneself, if carried that one is with simplicity and the naturalness, a certain installation, I do not find a better word, which makes you make sentences and style." (JL vol. XI, January 11th, 1937).
" To be a writer, it is to reveal in its writings a man, a character, a spirit, qualities or defects, faculties of observation, of judgment, progress, it is to testify to a personality small or large, pleasant or unpleasant, it does not import. It is also to have a style with its resemblance, which does that one recognizes the author without seeing his signature, it is not to be a maker of novels or any other work intended to pay its loyer." (JL vol. XII, May 22nd, 1939).

Works

1903 : the Boyfriend
1926: the Theater of Maurice Boissard: 1907-1923
1928 : Pastime
1942: found Notes (Printing works of Jacques Haumont, Paris): “Monday, August 25, 1941. While sorting of old papers, I find a series of notes which I had forgotten well. I do not know any more if I used them, nor if they are in their place in my " Journal". I gather them here by order of dates (of 1927 to 1934). ”
1943: the Theater of Maurice Boissard - 1907-1923 - with a supplement
1951: Discussions with Robert Mallet
1954 with 1966: Literary journal 19 volumes
1956: In Mémoriam translates into German and postface by Ernst Jünger in 1978
1956: Letters with my mother
1958: Loves
1958: the Theater of Maurice Boissard: 1915-1941 (volume 2)
1959: Bestiary
1963: Poetries
1964: the Small unfinished work
2001: Correspondence of Paul Léautaud. Volume 1,1878-1928 collected by Marie Dormoy
2001: Correspondence of Paul Léautaud. Volume 2,1829-1956 collected by Marie Dormoy

See too

Bibliographical orientations

Loïc Decrauze, the libertarian Aristocracy at Léautaud and Micberth , Lorisse, 1996.
Philippe Delerm, Now, foutez to me peace! , Mercure de France, 2006.
Raymond Mahieu, Paul Léautaud - the research of the identity (1872-1914), Letters modern Minard, 1974.
Pierre Perret, Good-bye, Mr Léautaud , JCLattès, 1986.
François Richard, the anarchism of right-hand side in the contemporary literature. Puf.
François Richard, anarchists of right-hand side. What do I know? Puf.
Martine Sagaert, " Paul Léautaud" , Astral Beaver, Years, 2006.
Edith Silve, Paul Léautaud and Mercure de France , Mercure de France, 1985.

External bonds

Article of Pierre Lalanne (www.e-literature)

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